It’s universal. We human beings look for ways to know we’re taking the right course in life. Like bewildered travelers in a foreign land, we study the byways of our lives, hoping to spot a reliable signpost. It’s just this impulse to seek direction that has led to the creation of systems and methods designed expressly for the purpose of generating signs.
The common word for it is divination, and history tells us it’s existed on our planet since time out of mind. With cowrie shells, the flight patterns of birds, weather phenomena, numbers, rows of dots, the names of planets and zodiacal divisions of the ecliptic, the archetypal deities of classical myth, crumpled tea leaves, swinging pendulums, playing cards, tarot cards, hexagrams, dowsing rods, sputtering candles, swirling incense, smoky mirrors, crystal balls, and the random selection of words in hallowed books, we humans have been hunting signs since language emerged.
Despite the warnings of certain organized religions against the practice of divination, it’s embraced by indigenous religions and folk practice the world around. Why? I wager there’s a universal curiosity about this thing some call destiny, others providence. Does it exist, or is the course of life determined by human choice? Is the making of choice itself predetermined? These questions plague the human mind, and know no definite answer. In the end, we humans are confronted with the moment of decision, and it seems to be under our own power. Naturally, we wonder if one choice is better than another.
It’s in this process of decision-making that signs are the most in demand. How do I know this? Because it’s true of me, and I’m no different from the rest of my kind. Never mind my silvering locks – I still seek a sign telling me the best course of action.
In fact, just recently I went to the woods, which is my spiritual sanctuary and source of guidance, for just this reason. The silver light of early evening threw a hush over the woods as I hiked along a riverside path and contemplated the best direction to set for myself at this most important time of life, my early sixties.
Lost in thought and surrounded by the lush greenery of midsummer, at last I arrived at the base of a great grandmother tree. With her gnarled and muscular roots, this wise old grandmother tree clung to the river bank tenaciously and grew at a daring angle over the water’s edge. Grandmother tree, I felt, radiated a wisdom of time and process I needed to grasp.
I slipped off my sneakers and stood happily barefoot amongst her powerful talon-roots in the sandy riverbank soil, itself sifted fine from the rise and fall of floodwaters over the years. Like a youngster, I wiggled my toes playfully in the silty softness, and then like the experienced crone that I am, I dug them in deeper and felt the solidity of the earth beneath me.
Noticing that three sandy paths met right at the root of my chosen tree, I thought, “All paths lead to this spot. This must mean that right here is where I should sit down, ask my question, and wait for an answer.”
Convinced I was alone, I decided to make a ritual of it. I noticed a slender stick close by in the leaves and twigs lying at the base of the tree; I figured it would do for a ceremonial wand. Taking my ritual stick respectfully in hand, I commenced to walk a circle at the base of the tree. I greeted the four directions and called forth their regents, together with their elemental wisdoms as I went. Then I settled myself comfortably in the sandy soil and used my special stick to draw a five-pointed star in the loose and damp sandy soil. Once secure in my ritual circle, I sat quietly for a moment and then sensed the woods already knew my question; I needed only sit peacefully and wait for a sign.
A sign can arrive in any form, I had read – a breeze, the conspicuous appearance of a wild animal, a thought, a word shouted out from other hikers afar, or nothing at all. This early twilit evening, with no moon in the sky, I was content to roost right where I was. Whether a sign arrived quickly or not was of no concern. Nearby, the river ran swiftly and smoothly, its silvered surface carrying rivulets of sparkling bubbles. A gentle stirring of the air wafted off the cool waters. Contented, I was happy to process myself, my life, and my future patiently. Even so, I was aware of a secret agreement with myself, a hidden covenant cloistered in the back of my mind, thus: I would stay put until I received a sign.
Pondering the best direction for my life in an abstract sort of way, my thoughts ran backward and forward over the course of my life just as the course of the river pursued its own direction beside me. Silently I sat, unassuming, drifting.
Though I was unaware of it, my sign was imminent. Without fanfare, a rustling of leaves or even a haunting cry, swiftly and silently there burst from the downstream woods an immense grey-blue heron in full flight, vast wingspan extended like an ancient avian as it languidly winged its way from east to west, upstream through the middle of the watercourse. The sudden appearance of the heron struck me like a moment out of time, a paleological eternity merged with an ever-present now, a stunning moment worthy of deep consideration.
At once, I understood that the primordial heron and the direction of her flight had appeared as my sign. Yet, like all true signs worth their salt, this one required interpretation. Right away, I didn’t know exactly what it all meant, though I knew there was a message for me somewhere in the vision. I would take it within and continue to mull the implications, I agreed with myself.
Satisfied for the moment, I closed my circle with thanks to the powers of the directions, reclaimed the shoes of civilization, and headed off in the same direction the heron flew, which conveniently led right back to my car.
About a month later, I was still turning the question over in my mind, when one day I fell into a light trance. In my mind, I found myself visiting Mother Heron in her riverside rookery, her reading glasses perched on her long beak as she sat perusing the local news in her comfortable waterside cottage.
“Ah, my dear,” Mother Heron crooned, “I’ve been waiting for you!”
“Hello Mother Heron. May I come in and chat with you while?” I said.
“But of course, my child. Have you been wondering what I meant by answering your request for a sign the way I did?” she queried as she flipped her spectacles off with a deft movement of her beak and caught them on the tip of a wing. “You know, the day you drew your magic circle at the base of my dear friend, Grandmother Tree,” she added for clarification.
“Oh yes, Mother Heron, I have indeed,” I answered right away.
“Well, dear, what have you made of it?
“Mother Heron, I know three things. You flew slowly and majestically, you flew in a direction that took you upstream and against the current, and you went somewhere to wade patiently in shallow water, waiting for your dinner to appear.”
“Why yes, my child, that’s the essence of it. But tell me: How does all this apply to you?”
“That’s what I’ve been wondering myself, Mother Heron,” I admitted willingly, not much further along in my thoughts on the matter.
Mother Heron peered at me with her round bird eyes and simply waited, as if she might skewer me with her long beak if I tarried too long in uncertainty.
“Well,” I said, buying some time, “I’ve been thinking about the business of flying upstream.”
“Go on,” the perceptive bird threw in.
“In a lot of ways, what I do puts me going against the fashion or the trend, Mother Heron. I’m an independent spirit, and always have been,” I ventured.
“That’s it, child. Yes, you’re on to something now,” she said, nodding her wise old bird’s head.
“So I’m thinking that what you meant to say by flying languidly and gracefully right up the middle of the watercourse in an upstream direction is that it can be elegant and even enjoyable to go against the current if one relaxes and enjoys the journey, and that in fact I actually ought to continue directing the course of my life contrary to popular assumptions.”
“Very good, my woodland friend. Very good,” the thoughtful bird said. “Anything more?”
“That I should know that what I need awaits in the river of life, and that I should lay aside worry and take up patience instead,” I offered.
“I think you have it, dear, except for one thing.”
“What is that, Mother Heron?”
“What about the impression you had of a prehistoric bird emerging from eternity? What does that mean to you now?”
“Mystery, Mother Heron, mystery,” I ventured. “And power.”
“It comes from where, would you say?”
“It comes from the wisdom of great Mother Nature, of which you are an emissary, Mother Heron,” I said with some conviction.
With that, my mantic trance evaporated at once and I was back again in today’s time, the wiser for my imaginary conversation, most of my questions answered.
Still I wonder, do we humans seek signs because we are intimidated by the decisions to which we are inevitably called in the course of life? Or then again, might not we seek signs because we know the path of life can be brought to a good place if our aim is right? I’m inclined to think it’s a mixture of both.
Whatever the case, signs happen. Mine happened. I asked and a sign came forth. And I’ve resolved to follow its lead. I’ll be devoting my sixties to hewing out my own path, going against the cultural assumption of what this time in life should be about, just as Mother Heron modeled in her graceful counter-current trajectory. I’ll be keeping my eyes on the upstream horizon and knowing I can make the flight.
